Annual Meeting 2011
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Palaeontological Association 55th Annual Meeting 17th–20th December 2011 Plymouth University PROGRAMME and ABSTRACTS Palaeontological Association 2 ANNUAL MEETING ANNUAL MEETING Palaeontological Association 1 The Palaeontological Association 55th Annual Meeting 17th–20th December 2011 School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Plymouth University The programme and abstracts for the 55th Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association are outlined after the following summary of the meeting. Venue The meeting will take place on the campus of Plymouth University. Directions to the University and a campus map can be found at <http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/location>. The opening symposium and the main oral sessions will be held in the Sherwell Centre, located on North Hill, on the east side of campus. Accommodation Delegates need to make their own arrangements for accommodation. Plymouth has a large number of hotels, guesthouses and hostels at a variety of prices, most of which are within ~1km of the University campus (hotels with PL1 or PL4 postcodes are closest). More information on these can be found through the usual channels, and a useful starting point is the website <http://www.visitplymouth.co.uk/site/where-to-stay>. In addition, we have organised discount rates at the Jury’s Inn, Exeter Street, which is located ~500m from the conference venue. A maximum of 100 rooms have been reserved, and will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Further information can be found on the Association’s website. Travel Transport into Plymouth can be achieved via a variety of means. Travel by train from London Paddington to Plymouth takes between three and four hours depending on the time of day and the number of stops. The lowest fares are available by booking in advance, e.g. through the First Great Western website (<www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk>). Flights to and from Plymouth airport have, unfortunately, recently been suspended, but many national and international airlines fly into Exeter airport or Newquay airport. Of the two, Exeter has the best public transport links to Plymouth and is one hour away from Plymouth by train. Ferries link Plymouth to France (Roscoff), Spain (Santander), and Cornwall. National Express coaches link Plymouth with all major UK cities and Palaeontological Association 2 ANNUAL MEETING London airports. Plymouth University is situated a few minutes’ walk from the train station, coach/ bus station, and a number of hotels, guesthouses and other accommodation. Delegates arriving by car are advised that the nearest public car parks are in Regent Street and in Drake Circus shopping centre. There will be limited free parking spaces on campus on Saturday and Sunday only. Blue badge holders will receive priority and should contact Sally Bishop-Hawes by e-mail to <[email protected]> to secure a place. Registration at the conference Registration will take place in the foyer of the Sherwell Centre, and will be open from 12.00 to 17.30 on Saturday 17th December, and from 08.00 to 17.00 on Sunday 18th December. Symposium The opening symposium on ‘Ancient and modern biotic crises’ will take place in the Sherwell Centre beginning at 13.45pm on Saturday 17th December. Icebreaker Reception This will commence at 18.15, following the symposium, and will take place in the Council Houses, Armada Way, PL1 2AA, located in the town centre, a 10-15 minute walk from campus. Transport will be provided for those who need it. Oral and poster sessions All oral presentations will take place in the Sherwell Centre, on the campus of the University. Single sessions will be held in the Lower Lecture Theatre, whereas the parallel sessions will utilise both Upper and Lower lecture theatres as indicated in the programme. The posters will be available for viewing throughout the conference in the Main Hall, where lunch will also be served on Sunday and Monday. There will be a dedicated poster session from 09.00–10.30 on Monday 19th December. Each poster will be assigned a single poster board and volunteers will be present in the Main Hall to assist contributors in putting up their posters. Each poster board is approximately 1.8m high by 0.9m wide. Annual Address The annual address will be given at 17.15 on Sunday 18th December by Professor Paul Pearson, on ‘Climate and evolution in the Cenozoic oceans’. This will be held in the Lower Lecture Theatre of the Sherwell Centre. Drinks Reception & Annual Dinner There will be a drinks reception followed by the Annual Dinner in the Guildhall on Sunday 18th December. The drinks reception will commence at 19.00 and the dinner at 20.00. The Guildhall is located at the junction of Armada Way and Royal Parade, in the town centre, a 10-15 minute walk from campus. Transport will be provided for those who need it. Some free parking is available at the venue. ANNUAL MEETING Palaeontological Association 3 Field excursion The field excursion will leave from the North Hill entrance to campus, between the Sherwell Centre and the Main Hall, at 9.00am on the morning of Tuesday 20th December. The itinerary will include examination of some of the famous, fossiliferous marine Devonian localities of the Torquay area (the English Riviera Global Geopark) in the morning, followed by lunch and an afternoon tour of Kents Cavern. At the end of the day, delegates will have the choice of returning to Plymouth or of being dropped off at Newton Abbott train station, which is on the main line to Exeter and all stations north and east. Further details will be provided to those who have registered for the fieldtrip after the final registration deadline of 18th November. Acknowledgements We express our appreciation to the following for providing financial assistance towards this meeting: Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, the Geological Society of London, and the Paleontological Institute, University of Kansas. Palaeontological Association 4 ANNUAL MEETING Schedule of events and timetable for presentations Saturday 17th December 2011 Thematic Symposium: “Ancient and Modern Biotic Crises” Chair: Prof. Malcolm Hart 13.45 Introductory Remarks 14.00 F/F, P/T, and T/J: different initials for the same kind of event? Peter D. Ward 14.30 Recurrent Jurassic anoxia following the end-Triassic mass-extinction Bas van de Schootbrugge, A. Bachan, S. Richoz, G. Suan and J.L. Payne 15.00 Mesozoic oceanic anoxic events and the evolution of planktic foraminifera R. Mark Leckie 15.30 Coffee Break 16.00 Half a billion years of extinction and recovery: Phanerozoic diversity patterns in fishes Matt Friedman, Lauren C. Sallan and Graeme T. Lloyd 16.30 Ecological consequences of a mass extinction in the marine benthos Martin Solan 17.00 Ancient mass extinctions as models for understanding modern environmental and biotic crises David J. Bottjer 18.15 Welcome reception at the Council Houses, Armada Way (sponsored by the Geological Society of London) ANNUAL MEETING Palaeontological Association 5 Sunday 18th December Oral Presentations * Candidates for the President’s Award are marked with an asterisk. Oral presentations will take place in the Sherwell Centre on the University campus, where registration will also take place between 08:30 and 17:00. Sessions will be held in the Lower Lecture Theatre unless indicated in the schedule below. Posters will be on display in the Main Hall throughout the conference. Tea and coffee will be served in both the foyer of the Sherwell Centre and the Main Hall; lunch will be served in the Main Hall only. 8.50 Introductory Remarks Session 1 9.00 The Cambrian conundrum: early divergence and later ecological success in the early history of animals Douglas H. Erwin, Marc Laflamme, Sarah M. Tweedt, Erik A. Sperling, Davide Pisani and Kevin J. Peterson 9.15 Macroevolutionary trends: disparity across the Phanerozoic Martin Hughes, Sylvain Gerber and Matthew A. Wills 9.30 Adjusted homoplasy indices and patterns of variation *Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill 9.45 Family richness in the insect fossil record *David B. Nicholson 10.00 Lower Cretaceous Neuropterida (Insecta) from the Purbeck and Wealden, southern England *James E. Jepson 10.15 The original colours of fossil moths Maria E. McNamara, Derek E. G. Briggs, Patrick J. Orr, Sonja Wedmann, Heeso Noh and Hui Cao 10.30 Coffee and Posters Session 2 11.00 The origin and early evolution of the arthropods *David A. Legg, Mark, D. Sutton, Gregory D. Edgecombe and Jean-Bernard Caron 11.15 Differentiating arthropod segment articulation morphology and its bearing on a revised phylogeny of basal chelicerates *James C. Lamsdell and Martin Stein 11.30 Skimming the surface with Burgess Shale arthropod locomotion *Nicholas J. Minter, M. Gabriela Mangano and Jean-Bernard Caron Palaeontological Association 6 ANNUAL MEETING 11.45 Mouthparts in the Cambrian ‘molluscs’ Odontogriphus and Wiwaxia: implications for ecology and affinity *Martin R. Smith 12.00 The oral cone of Anomalocaris from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale Allison C. Daley and J. Bergström 12.15 Lunch Session 3a (Upper Lecture Theatre; in parallel with Session 3b) 13.30 Exploring the earliest signs of cellular life on Earth Martin D. Brasier and David Wacey 13.45 The origin of sponges: examination of Precambrian metazoan diversifications Jonathan B. Antcliffe, R. H. T. Callow and M. D. Brasier 14.00 New perspectives on early sponges: mineralogy, morphology and relationships Joseph P. Botting 14.15 Is Diania cactiformis the ‘missing link’ between lobopodians and arthropods? Xiaoya Ma, Gregory D. Edgecombe, David A. Legg and Xianguang Hou 14.30 A cryptic Cambrian radiation of crustaceans Thomas H. P. Harvey, M. I. Velez and N. J. Butterfield 14.45 Up the spout? Climbing up the chelicerate stem-group Graham E. Budd and D.